Posted on 04/29/2009 5:53:47 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The French president unveiled the plan after ten of the world's leading architects, including Lord Rogers, presented blueprints aimed at creating a sprawling city over the next 20 years which would be the world's most sustainable metropolis in the wake of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
Mr Sarkozy singled out a proposal by the French architect Antoine Grumbach to extend the city to the Channel port of Le Havre via Rouen along the Seine, maximising the green possibilities of the river and with a fast rail link.
The idea was mooted by Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom Mr Sarkozy is often likened and who once exclaimed: "Paris-Rouen-Le Havre: one single city with the Seine as its main road."
Mr Sarkozy also said that he would like to lift the ban on building skyscrapers in Paris. "Why ban building towers if they are beautiful, if they fit harmoniously into the urban landscape? The only reproachable thing is ugliness," he said, during a speech at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in the French capital.
Bertrand Delanoë, the city's Socialist mayor, also favours introducing towers.
Mr Sarkozy also said that a key focus of the plan would be to link the city's isolated suburbs, which include housing estates with large immigrant populations which have experienced high unemployment and discrimination and were rocked by riots in 2005. Paris is currently all but cut off from these banlieues by its ring road.
To this end, Mr Sarkozy announced a 35 billion euro (£31.5 billion) project to create a fully automatic 24-hour fast rail service circling the capital via the Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, towns including Versailles, and the La Défense business district. It would remain overground where possible and stop off at major TGV stations.
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(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Oh kewl, give the Youts more access to Paris.
Most sustainable metropolis? I love that expression. It is beyond silly. Would green space and bio-fuel public transportation have saved parts of Detroit from becoming Zimbabwe? A sustainable metropolis respects business.
Yep. Brilliant. Create a megacity of 20 million, 16 million of whom are Muzzies.
It'll make Mexico City look like paradise.
As long as they stay away from calais, I’m ok with it. Calais is anglo territory and i don’t wanna see any parisians anywhere near calais.
He's been criticizing Obama recently, and appears determined that no stinking American will ever outspend him.
Notre Dame cathedral will one day be a mosque.
A few years ago urban sprawl was supposed to be a bad thing, now it’s the future. How long before the fad flip-flops again?
Mr Sarkozy also said that a key focus of the plan would be to link the city's isolated suburbs, which include housing estates with large immigrant populations which have experienced high unemployment and discrimination and were rocked by riots in 2005. Paris is currently all but cut off from these banlieues by its ring road.
It's one thing not to care about dhimmitude, but it's another to pay for transportation to facilitate the takeover process. Some one should remind the French that bending over and taking it from the Germans isn't nearly the same as bending over and taking it from the Muzzies.
How do you say lebensraum in French?
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